The Fed voted Wednesday to continue its $85 billion-a-month bond-buying program. The decision was a surprise because Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and other voting members of the Fed had telegraphed over the summer than the bank was considering pulling back. The bond buying is designed to keep interest rates low with the goal of stimulating the economy by encouraging borrowing and lending.

"He basically shelved tapering for the short and medium term," said Frank Davis, director of sales and trading at LEK Securities. Davis said the Fed would likely not vote to start pulling back until its mid-December policy meeting.

The price of gold futures for December trading on New York's Comex rose 4.6% to $1,367.70 on Thursday, the metal's biggest gain since 2009, says Bloomberg News.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose Thursday to 2.75%. On Wednesday, the surprise decision by the Fed to delay tapering sent the yield down to 2.7% from 2.85% Tuesday.

Investors are now trying to figure out if the Fed's decision to do nothing is a sign that the economy is in worse shape than previously thought.

The Fed cut its economic growth forecasts for this year and 2014. Bernanke warned in his comments that the upcoming debt ceiling and budget battles between the White House and Congress "may involve additional risks to financial markets and to the broader economy."

The government said the number of people who filed for unemployment benefits rose to 309,000 last week, well below the 326,000 claims economists had expected, according to data from FactSet.

In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 in Tokyo rose 1.8% to 14,766.18, even though government data showed a bigger-than-expected gap in trade. Hong Kong''s Hang Seng jumped 1.7% to 23,502.51. Markets in South Korea and mainland China were closed for public holidays.